30+ Kid Friendly Business Opportunities (2023)

I started as a young kid who always loved dogs but never knew how to take care of them. I had several dogs in my life. A Lab/terrier mix, a pit bull, and several other mix breeds. I would always watch Cesar Milan and think “I could do that”. It wasn’t until I had a dog that would bite your hand when you took its food bowl that I realized it was a lot harder than I thought. I decided I was going to learn this dog training.

Everybody always says do what you love, but what if that thing you love makes no money?

I spent hours studying and then I got wrapped up in it. I would learn something new and become obsessed with dog training even more. I ended up learning from different teachers and knew I wanted to be the best.

I was 19 and a 2nd Year Product Design student at Northumbria University (the same course as Jony Ive of Apple fame had done a few years earlier). During the course, we were asked to enter a national luggage design competition. When I went looking for inspiration at a Department Store, I found myself looking at ride on toys for kids and thinking about how much space they waste. Often, they have a lift-up seat with barely enough space to store an apple. The idea came to me to make a ride-on toy that maximized the internal space so it could function as luggage and entertain kids while traveling. I went on to win the competition and approached a luggage manufacturer to license the design. They told me I'd invented a toy and when I approached toy manufacturers, they said it was luggage!

5 years later I finally found a toy company that took Trunki on and I signed a global licensing deal with them to manufacture my design and sell it anywhere in the world. They went bust 3 years later having only ever sold Trunki in the Middle East of all places!

Shortly after that I decided I could do a better job, launched Trunki as a lifestyle brand (not a toy or luggage) I quit my job as a product designer, and started the business. 9 years after the initial idea!

My online entrepreneurial journey started when I was 21 and my then girlfriend was pregnant with our first child. That was almost 17 years ago. I was working a minimum wage customer service job, had no post high school education, and knew that I needed to make big changes in order to provide a better life for my family. It’s been a long journey that’s seen its share of ups & downs, with times where I literally wasn’t sure how I would be able to feed my family the next day. Somehow, it worked out, and I always knew the sacrifices would pay off if I stuck with it.

Most recently, my role was VP, Audience Development at CBS Interactive. During my 6 1/2 years at CBS, we grew from the #13 Comscore property to #6. That’s an elite group: Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon, Microsoft and then CBSi. Prior to my role at CBSi, I ran audience growth at a startup called Clicker, which was acquired by CBS for a nine-figure sum. That was quite a learning experience.

The entrepreneurial spirit in me was calling the entire time I was at CBS Interactive. I never expected to be there for as long as I was, but incentives in the form of stock options that hadn’t vested and a big paycheck helped keep me around. That and I also enjoyed the learning experience, challenges of working on the biggest internet properties, and working for the CEO, who’s been a great mentor to me. But, my time had come. CBSi was running like a well-oiled machine and the excitement was no longer there for me. I needed to work on something that was meaningful to me again. I was also a partner in a content arbitrage business at that time with yearly revenues of around $7.5 million at its peak. That helped make the decision to leave easier. This was, of course, non-conflicting to my work at CBS.

My background is in finance. I worked in investment banking for six years in New York. I loved the job, the people, and the hours. But as a service job I wanted to be making things not just helping others make things. This desire has led me to where I am today.

My brother and I have always loved to make fun of everything. Around 2014, we visited my mom’s house and she had this musical greeting card. We thought it was annoying. We asked each other, "Who wants to listen to this!?" Then Nick asked, “What if it didn’t stop?”

That was it. Nothing more. No market research.

I started Southern Elegance right after my son was born as a hobby. Initially, I made a bunch of random bath and body products in addition to the candles. When I decided to get serious, I looked at everything and decided to just focus on one product and chose candles because they had the potential to be the most profitable. I chose a niche that I could speak authentically about. My ideal customer was easy to identify because it was basically me. (But, don't use that a marketing strategy. It just happened to work in this case) I was born and raised in the South. I LOVE living here and couldn't imagine living anywhere else. I created a company around all the things that I love to do.

Choose your partners carefully and trust your gut. I made very bad decisions by going against what I thought I should do and listening to “experts” and lost a ton of money.

I was working in education at the time and I absolutely hated it. One day walked into work and quit my job to make candle making a full-time career. I had absolutely no background in sales, manufacturing, marketing or anything business-related. I basically had no clue as to how it was going to work or if this was even a viable plan. Everything was a learning curve, and I spent hours learning a new skill then implementing it.

With very limited resources, (basically no money) I went to the school of Google and Youtube. I took some online classes on Branding and Wholesaling. I hired a business coach and I literally hit the streets selling. For the first year, I would sell my candles at any Church function, fair, festival, school bazaar… I did not care. I sold candles outside in the middle of the summer and the dead of winter. I also sold on any and every online platform that would accept me. Etsy, Amazon, Faire, Modalyst, Houzz, etc. All the money I made went back into building the brand, I was lucky to have a husband to pay the bills but it was tight financially. When I finally felt comfortable I approached stores to carry my products. And we slowly built a base of stores to sustain the company.

In retrospect, I’m pretty sure no one else has the foolishness we had in the start of our business. But, you know, it worked out ok…

So, first, let me say that we had never made soap before we decided to start a soap company. Yeah, seriously.

Bonjour! My name is Anthony Rosemond. I'm a Parisian chef & founder of Pastreez, an online French bakery.

We’ve sold over 1 million macarons to this date, with only a team of two.

I come from an entrepreneurial family. My father works for himself and my maternal grandfather started a clothing factory. Working for myself has always been encouraged by my family, but before I could get started, I needed to learn a skill. At Georgetown, I study international politics and business. Most students with these backgrounds go on to work at prestigious firms like J.P. Morgan. I really didn’t know what kind of business I could start, and frankly, planned to work as a (boring) data analyst after graduation.

If you have an idea but don’t have the knowledge to execute, use that idea as motivation and go learn how to turn your vision into reality.

Tutoring first came to mind because I had spent significant time working for other tutoring companies and cutting my teeth/learning how the industry works during my teen years. I first started tutoring when I was 15. I was hired by College Experts, a local test prep center in Davie, Florida. My first student was three years older than me, and I spent our first session teaching him how to use his calculator rather than trying to explain any complicated formulas. Being a student myself, I was able to bring a student’s perspective to tutoring. I worked for College Experts until my senior year of high school when I began tutoring on my own and finding clients on Craigslist.

Although I am a Canarian by birth, I am a Valencian by adoption, many years ago I left my beloved islands with the intention of training in Industrial Design in Valencia.

I began combining classes with work in a design studio, where I had contact with various fields: product design, graphic design, corporate identity ... although the turns of destiny made me fully enter the world of footwear before finishing the race.

From that moment, more than 10 years ago, the world of leathers, soles, linings, and laces, has been very present in my working life, working for various brands, both national and outside our borders.

I’ve always had an interest in magic and with Google, YouTube, and the Internet not yet invented, I spent many hours as a youth slow motioning VCR tapes, poring over library books, and trying to decipher how all these seemingly impossible magic tricks were possible. It wasn’t until I met a magician named Gerald Joseph that my magic career truly began. After the party I asked him a few questions, Joseph revealed to me, one of the most astounding effects in magic - how to make a ring disappear and end up in his wallet, in a zippered compartment! He didn’t have to share how this effect worked, but he did and became one of my early friends in magic. Around the same time, I discovered Misdirections Magic Shop, and it’s owner Joe Pon, who, through his lecture series, introduced me to the most respected magicians in the industry.

Performing magic as a career involves more than just magic. Learning how to budget, market, finance, build a website, communicate effectively with others, and effectively run a business is a challenge of its own.

While I worked full time at Paypal pre-IPO, I started performing magic on the side. I would work on the weekends performing magic instead of watching movies or hanging out with friends, and would occasionally use my sick days to take lucrative performances. It was tough mostly working 7 days a week, during the day working my desk job, my evenings dedicated to honing my craft, and my weekends filled with performances. The real “aha!” a moment came several months later when I worked out the math and realized that I could quit my desk job and take on magic full time. This change was a huge risk as I knew I would be giving up a steady paycheck with many benefits. Still, I was confident I could fully transition to a business based on referrals, repeat customers, and, most importantly, rave reviews.

I’ve always had quite the entrepreneurial spirit, always thinking of the next best idea which is how my first business was created - a non-profit focused on helping young women, followed by an employee concierge, I started with my father Jeluxxe Lifestyle Solutions. I was always intrigued to hear about others’ journeys and how they became full-time entrepreneurs but never thought I’d get there but here I am, thanks to Balloon Haus INC. As well as, reading and learning have always been an interest of mine, which is why I was able to start this “little balloon company.”

Balloon Haus was a random idea that turned a successful business. A client from one of my other companies was looking for balloon decor and my assistant agreed to help with finding a vendor. This was much harder than we thought it would be and with no luck, we turned to youtube and figured out how to create the requested installation ourselves and the rest was history. I registered the business the same day, contacted my father and he told me, “this was the best decision you have ever made.” This was the only validation that I needed to know, this was going to be a successful business.

DO NOT TAKE ON A DIFFICULT CUSTOMER. If you notice communicating with the customer from the beginning is not easy - do not continue as you will regret it and most likely end up with an unhappy customer by the end of the transaction.

I have always had a passion for animals. I was going to school full time at the University of Rhode Island as a Pre-Vet student while working full time at a local veterinary hospital AND picking up pet sitting and dog walking clients on the side.

Since my late teenage years, I have known that I wanted to work with animals. While working at the animal hospital, I saw a great need for this type of service, and soon after decided to start this business!

I would often come across clients who had not traveled in years because their pets required specialized care or medications or because they did not know who to ask or whom they could trust with their pets and their home.

Devyn Ricks is the founder of Miss Devyn, and she has been teaching online for more than eight years and has played video games for over 20 years.

Devyn is not a well-known YouTuber or Twitch streamer, but she makes thousands of dollars each month playing video games on the side.

She is an Outschool gaming teacher who enjoys both teaching and playing video games. Her YouTube channel focuses entirely on guiding experienced and beginner players through the ins and outs of her favorite games.

On her Outschool profile, Video gaming Social club Universe, Devyn offers live instruction to young students.

Listen to the full podcast on podcasts.apple.com ➜

I am a lawyer and engineer with an artsy streak. I took evening art lessons through engineering undergrad and held an art show in the faculty lounge at my law school.

After graduating during the height of the downturn in 2009, I moved home to live with my parents while working my way into the perfect legal job at the best intellectual property law firm in the country. I forgot all about art until shortly before my babies were born. I painted to decorate their nurseries. And from that, the business was born alongside our second son (we literally launched the website from my hospital room in the maternity ward).

Then life was back to normal. Two working spouses, kids in daycare, and little time to ourselves. Like many new parents, we were not sleeping enough, and feeling pent up and frustrated. We needed a change, a refresh. We used to travel so much before careers and kids, and now do we really have to wait 18 years to do it again? So we decided to press pause on the American Dream and, with lots of planning, are trying out a different way of life for a year. A life where we pick up our heads and give ourselves permission to be endlessly fascinated by the world around us. In August of 2018, we rented out our house, packed everything into a 10x20 storage unit, and left the country to travel the world with four backpacks and a pack n’ play. During this time, we finished and just published our latest and greatest book: Einstein’s Trampoline. (Bilingual edition coming soon because we are learning Spanish!).

Once upon a time, I was an elementary school teacher with a growing family. During this time, my husband and I were considering ways that one of us could be at home to meet the increasing demands that a family of four growing children needs. I loved my job as a teacher but the inflexible work schedule was becoming unmanageable. As fate would have it while on maternity leave, I started looking at a couple of services that were referred to me by a friend that also owns an online business: FE International and BizBuySell. I signed up to receive emails from both. After personally corresponding with one of the brokers at FE International explaining that I was looking for something education-related, I was given early notification of BingoCardCreator.com. I relate this process very much to knowing you want to move to a new area, calling a real estate agent in that area, and then the agent gives you the heads up as soon as something pops up that they believe will be of interest to you.

When I first got wind of BingoCardCreator.com, I was actually quite surprised because up to this point of about six months of actively searching, I had seen nothing in my education niche. So when I received word from the agent at FE International that the education-focused site, BingoCardCreator.com was for sale- I actually had a subscription to BingoCardCreator.com as a teacher- I was really excited. My first offer was originally rejected leaving time for another offer to come in. Not wanting the opportunity to slip away and considering the fact that the asking price was still in the threshold of what we were willing to spend, we decided to come in at a full price. Once the seller accepted my offer, FE International took over the process making the sale and transfer easy.

It has been quite a journey ever since. Never having any business experience, I had to learn everything: The world of digital marketing, business finances, not to mention understanding the technical aspects of the service we offer. To do this, I read as much as I could from experts like the folks at Digital Marketer or from Perry Marshall. As I quickly learned, however, most things business-related require a lot of money and take up a lot of time which are two things I did not have much of. So I took the approach of just taking it one day at a time, and letting my small successes like adding a new blog post, bingo cards, or making contact with a developer on Upwork, to keep me moving forward. Given my lack of money for proper training, I would use any free resources I could find on YouTube or blogs, to help me figure out what my next step would be. Often, I find that by just starting with a simple question like, “What was my organic traffic the past three months?” leads me to figure out what I need to do or learn, next. I have made a lot of mistakes and at times I was completely overwhelmed by what I did NOT know, but by plugging away at the day to day, ultimately I find that the answers come and I believe the journey has been worth the risk. Although the income is modest, it has allowed me to contribute to my family’s finances with complete flexibility. I work when and where I choose. Not only that, I have a whole new skill set from which to draw from that gives me the potential for future endeavors.

Courtney Joy always wanted to be a teacher as a little girl. She used to pretend to teach in her childhood home basement on Long Island, New York. Growing up in an artistic family, she became a figurative and landscape artist and eventually attended art school. After college, she decided to merge her two childhood passions together and became an art teacher.

Lindsay Ann expressed herself through art in a different way. She was in the theater and went to school for drama in New York City. While pursuing her dream of acting, she also made beaded jewelry on the side. It quickly became a passion of hers and would help lead her down a new path in life.

Within our first 3 months, we sold over 100 orders, resulting in more than $3,000 in revenue. By the end of our first year, we had sold over 2,300 orders, resulting in more than $65,000.

I’ve spent the last 17 years serving in the United States Navy – separating from active service in 2017 to pursue entrepreneurship full-time while entering the Navy Reserves. A big part of separating from active service five years before retirement was my life-long passion for entrepreneurship. In 3rd grade it was hawking creepy crawlers for $0.25, at 12 years old it was snow removal and lawn mowing, then it was going to auctions and reselling on eBay… there was always something.

In 2009, my wife, Cherice, and I launched the activewear apparel company for service members, Warwear. This was my first dose of: “if you build it, they [don’t necessarily] come.” After acquiring more inventory than I’m comfortable sharing, we had a major problem: it wasn’t moving off the shelves. In 2010, I approached my good friend Derrick Smith with an idea: let’s create an adventure race so we could move Warwear apparel via ‘free’ participant shirts. After opening up a Men’s Health magazine and seeing a Warrior Dash ad (and knowing full-pagers were north of $150,000), I knew there had to be an opportunity in the space; and the new obstacle race company could reimburse for the apparel in exchange for seed capital.

Go with data, not your gut. The amount of time invested in data collection and analysis should be commensurate with the impact of the decision across the organization.

My name is Amanda Bradford and I own Bradford Bakery. I started in the culinary industry 15 years ago and have done everything from restaurants to the Dalai Lama’s 80th birthday cake and celebrity catering events.

Our customers reach out to us because they know they are getting quality products that will meet the needs of their event and their dietary restrictions if they have any! We are a favorite of our local community and love that people are spreading the word about our business to their friends which we are seeing in our growing client list! Even in the past few months we have seen a 550% increase in our SEO on google and filled more orders for the community just by them recommending us and searching us on the web!

Hi! I’m Jacques Hopkins, creator of Piano In 21 Days. My online piano course helps adults of all ages learn to play piano as fast as possible. Most of my students are people who never had the time or failed piano lessons before. Some are retirees who are excited about a new hobby but don’t want to wait years for results. Others are busy parents or professionals who need a low-pressure, flexible learning schedule.

My business brings in five figures every month, and I built everything from the ground up. I knew I had a unique take on piano lessons, but I had to learn everything about digital entrepreneurship and marketing in real time. It took a lot of effort, but it worked: I quit my engineering job and have been supporting my family this way for over eight years now.

On Jan 9, 2015, Kirsty Partridge started an art youtube channel. Since then, she's gained over 1.3M subscribers and 81,296,486 views so far.

After she realized the growth potential of her Youtube channel, she launched her website, Kirsty Partridge Art, where she provides art tutorials, drawing guides, online art courses, and more.

Kirtsy also offers a personalized art course through her course Coloured Pencil Academy and to date, she has taught more than 21K+ students who have a deep love for art & drawing.

Read the full article on artismycareer.com ➜

My name is Chris Crawford and I am the founder of RinseKit. We design, manufacture, and sell the RinseKit- a portable pressurized shower that’s like having a hose to go. It doesn’t require pumping or batteries, fills from a hose spigot or sink in 30 seconds, can maintain pressure for up to a month, and is entirely portable. We started the business back about 5 years ago and have since grown to average over $1.5 M in sales each year.

My name is sandeep salwann, A professional voice actor based out of New Delhi, India, and I operate from my recording studio. I have been in the voice-over domain since 2005.

We aim to provide the best voice-over projects to our voice talents so that clients can get thriving benefits from their products and services.

Turning a passion into a 6-figure business is the goal of many entrepreneurs, and Jennifer Sobel has made that happen.

She has taken her long-term passion for belly dancing and used her three years of knowledge in digital marketing to build a successful belly dancing coaching business online.

Her company is called TheBellyDanceSolution.com and she inspires hundreds of women to attain their positive body goals with the help of belly dancing.

Jennifer uses belly dancing as a tool to live a healthy and happy life and helps her clients live a stress-free life while guiding them to regain their confidence & self-esteem.

Listen to the full podcast on sidehustleschool.com➜